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Tag: vows

  • AIG vows to tackle thugs

    AIG vows to tackle thugs

    The Assistant Inspector General of Police (AIG) in charge of Zone 10, Bala Hassan, said yesterday that the command would not grant bail to political thugs arrested with weapons during campaigns.

    He said the command would not compromise its role of ensuring peace, law and order as well as protecting life and property.

    According to him, the command would not fold it arms and allow thugs to unleash terror and violence on the citizens, especially before, during and after the elections.

    Hassan spoke in Sokoto at a stakeholders’ meeting with leaders of parties.

    Zone 10 comprises Sokoto, Kebbi and Zamfara states.

    He warned that henceforth, any thug arrested with a knife, cutlass or other weapons would be charged.

    “We will, however, ensure thorough investigations to make sure anyone indicted is charged and prosecuted,” the AIG said.

    He promised to provide a level-playing field for the parties.

    According to Hassan, “this is to ensure the protection of life and property before, during and after the polls.”

    Police Commissioner Salisu Fagge assured of the force readiness to ensure the conduct of violence-free rallies and elections.

    He stressed that politicians must respect the rules of the game by obeying the laws of the land and the Electoral Act.

  • Osimhen vows to wreck Niger

    Osimhen vows to wreck Niger

    Golden Eaglets gangling striker,Victor Osimhen has again stated here that he is ready to shoulder the team’s goal scoring responsibility as the 11th African Under-17 Championship gets underway in Niger today.

    The coach Emmanuel Amuneke -tutored side would open their Niger 2015 account today with the crucial opening fixture against host, Niger and Osimhen who was Golden Eaglets’ joint top scorer in the qualifiers said he was battle ready.

    “First and foremost, we want to thank God for bringing us here safely” said Osimhen, who was recruited from Lagos-based Ultimate Strikers.

    “Against Niger on Sunday, we are expecting nothing but victory because we have worked so hard to reach this stage.”

    Osimhen is one of the team’s standard bearers having scored a cumulative 18 goals in 38 matches (official and friendly) on the road to Niger 2015 and he remains upbeat about getting on the score sheet yet again.

    He said:”We remain confident going into this match because our coaches have told us how important this match is. They have reminded us about hard work, focus and consistency because without these three things,we can’t achieve our objectives here.

    “Personally, I’m not under any pressure going against Niger on Sunday and by the grace of God, I’m going to deliver if I’m lucky to be fielded because we have a team that boasts of good strikers.

    “I’m confident because I’m in a good condition and I have the belief that I’m going to score.”

    Speaking further, Osimhen said he and his teammates are aware of the huge responsibility of playing against the host on the opening day of the championship but insisted they have the wherewithal to handle the game.

    “Yes, we know we are going to play against two teams on Sunday; the Niger team and the crowd but we have prepared well for this assignment,” said Osimhen, the last born of his parents.

    “We want Nigerians to continue to pray for us to move forward and they should expect nothing but a successful tournament from us by the grace of God,” Osimhen said.

  • Ezea vows to end discrimination

    Ezea vows to end discrimination

    The governorship candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Enugu State, Mr. Okechukwu Ezea, has promised to end discrimination against non- indigenes, if elected.

    He spoke at the weekend in an interaction with Anambra indigenes.

    The APC governorship candidate hailed the people for their dynamism, saying Igbo land would have been better if other Ndigbo had the enterprise and industry of Anambra people.

    Ezea said it was unfortunate that some people, instead of learning from Anambra indigenes, out of ignorance and jealousy, neglected them.

    Said he: “I’m ready for competition. Eighty per cent of the houses in the state are owned by Anambra people. They did not build them by force, but through hard work.

    “I will like Anambra people to bring their entrepreneurial prowess to Enugu. Anambra people should come and invest in the state. APC government will partner the people to move Enugu State forward.

    “I am an academic. I’m a businessman. An academic is not afraid of competition. It will end on examination day. I am a businessman. For Anambra, Imo, Ebonyi and Abia, Enugu is the melting point. Every Igboman has equal rights in Enugu.”

    Ezea recalled that during the military era, they sacked people in Enugu and as a postgraduate student, he wrote a military administrator, asking why somebody, who was born and grew up in Enugu, should be subjected to discrimination, whereas the Igbo living in Sokoto were not maltreated.

    He assured that if elected, Enugu would become a place for all Igbo men and women, adding that irrespective of the state of origin, they would have equal right to own houses in the New G.R.A.

    Ezea promised to build an international market in Enugu, with 5,000 lock-up shops, to accommodate the apprentices graduating from Ogbete and Kenyetta markets in the Enugu metropolis.

  • FRSC vows strict enforcement of traffic rules

    FRSC vows strict enforcement of traffic rules

    THE Corps Marshall and Chief Executive of the Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC), Boboye Oyeyemi, has promised aggressive enforcement of traffic rules and regulations this year.

    Oyeyemi said appropriate sanctions would be meted out to traffic violators to deter them.

    He spoke in Asaba, Delta State, during an assessment of operations in parts of the Southsouth and Southeast geo-political zones, as travellers are returning to their places of work and business after the Christmas and the New Year festivities.

    The corps marshal launched the 2014 ember months’ special patrol in Kaduna on December, 19, 2014, code-named:”Operations Zero Tolerance for Road Traffic Crashes”.

    He also embarked on aerial surveillance through air support provided by the Nigerian Air Force (NAF).

    His Special Assistant on Media, Sani Abdullahi, in a statement, said Oyeyemi took off from Abuja with his monitoring team yesterday, as part of the second stage of the operation.

    Abdullahi said the team monitored traffic on the Abuja-Lokoja and Okene-Auchi road in Edo State before proceeding to Asaba in Delta State.

    He said the corps marshal received situation reports from relevant commanding officers along the corridors.

    After the exercise, Oyeyemi expressed satisfaction with the level of commitment shown by the FRSC operatives while carrying out traffic operations.

    He urged them to sustain the tempo of patrols in the New Year.

    His words: “While I acknowledge the commitment shown by the FRSC personnel and support received from other agencies, it is pertinent to restate that we would sustain the tempo of enforcement this year.”

  • Ranchers vs Kwara United fracas: NFF vows to deal with culprits

    Ranchers vs Kwara United fracas: NFF vows to deal with culprits

    • Awaits official report of the match

    The Nigeria Football Federation  (NFF) has vowed to apply the necessary punishment to the erring club in the rescheduled Nigeria National League (NNL) match between host Ranchers Bees of Kaduna and Kwara United of Ilorin that ended in a fracas at the Abuja National Stadium’s Goal Project Center on Friday.

    The Appeals Committee of the NFF had ruled that the remaining 28 minutes left to be played when violence erupted in the first encounter in Kaduna be played in the replay match held in Abuja on Friday. But barely six minutes to go, irate fans invaded the pitch and unleashed mayhem on Referee Charles Ozigbo (from Anambra).

    The match was again abandoned for the second time and the Referee could have been lynched but for the timely intervention of the handful of Policemen at the stadium who did everything to ensure that Ozigbo, although seriously assaulted by the irate fans, eventually escaped.

    Director of Competitions of the NFF, Dr. Muhammed Sanusi, told SportingLife yesterday that the NFF is awaiting the reports of the match from the appropriate quarters (the referee, match commissioner and others sources) after which the relevant committee dealing with such cases would meet to decide on the matter.

    “We are greatly disturbed and shocked by what happened in the match between Ranchers Bees and Kwara United at the Goal Project Center on Friday. Right now we are still awaiting the reports of the match after which the relevant committee will deliberate and decide on the matter based on thorough investigations of what happened during the match.

    “I would say once again that the NFF is not happy with this incident and we will come out hard on the culprit after due investigation”, Sanusi declared.

    The winner of the expected boardroom decision will pick the fourth promotion ticket to the Nigerian top flight. Wikki Tourists, 3SC and Gabros FC have already booked passages to the Nigeria Professional Football League (NPFL).

  • CBN vows to defend naira

    CBN vows to defend naira

    The central bank of Nigeria (CBN)has pledged to keep supporting the naira after the currency approached a record low amid declining oil prices.

    “We will continue to defend the naira,”  CBN Deputy Governor, Economic Policy, Dr. Sarah Alade told Bloomberg. “Yesterday, we saw the naira at a level we were not comfortable with. We increased dollar supply in the market and it calmed.”

    Since mid-September, the CBN has used foreign reserves to sell dollars outside of regular auctions held Mondays and Wednesdays, according to Standard Chartered Plc.

    It will keep using the auctions and direct dollar sales to banks to preserve the value of the currency, Alade said. The currency strengthened 0.2 per cent to 164.90 per dollar. It earlier weakened as much as 0.8 per cent to 166.42, a record low on a closing basis.

    The naira weakened 0.9 per cent this month as Brent crude fell to the lowest level in more than four years last week. Further losses would force Nigeria to choose between raising interest rates, eroding reserves or, eventually, devaluing the currency, according to Exotix Ltd., a London-based investment bank. The Federal Reserve is poised to end a program this month of asset-buying that drove investors to buy stocks, bonds and currencies in developing nations.

    The currency yesterday weakened as much as 0.4 per cent to 166.07 before rebounding. At auctions, the central bank offers the currency at 155 per dollar, plus or minus 3 percent.

    “We expect that investors will demand more dollars,” Alade said. “Our foreign-exchange reserves are still robust.”

    Nigeria’s reserves were $39.2 billion as of Oct. 21 from $43.6 billion at the end of last year. “The central bank has staked its credibility as an institution on the stability of the currency,” Bryan Carter, money manager at Boston-based Acadian Asset Management, said in an interview yesterday in London.

  • Ondo APC vows to resist Mimiko

    Ondo APC vows to resist Mimiko

    Ondo State All Progressives Congress (APC) at the weekend urged the state’s progressive-minded people to embrace the party for a positive change, vowing to resist any intimidation by Governor Olusegun Mimiko.

    Its Chairman, Isaac Kekemeke, in an interview with reporters on the defection of Mimiko to the People’s Democratic Party(PDP), said he had directed wards and local government executives to open membership registers for new members in the 203 wards.

    Besides, the former secretary to the state government(SSG) vowed that the party would resist attempts by the governor to scuttle and decimate the genuine yearnings of  the citizenry to realise their individual and collective aspiration on the APC’s broad-based platform.

    He condemned the alleged threat by Mimiko to declare vacant, the seats of elected members of the House of Assembly, who are set to join the APC vacant.

    Kekemeke said: “It is our position that just as the governor and his acolytes in the Assembly exercised their right of freedom of political association by defecting to the PDP, other legislators, who intend to join APC, also have the right to do so without limitation and intimidation.

    “We concede to the governor the right to freedom of the political association and he is therefore entitled to roam freely in the political environment. However, the people should not allow themselves to be fooled again.

    “There is nothing surprising about Mimiko’s defection, since it has become his trade mark in his political life. But what is surprising now is the equal zeal with which the governor is attempting to deceive the citizenry once again.”

    The party chairman noted that the move was an attempt to re-create himself in the PDP.

    He said: “We symphatise with the PDP in Ondo State which has expressed disenchantment with the political virus that has been foisted on it by its national leadership.

    “It has even come to our knowledge that Mimiko has put in place mechanism to entice, intimidate and subdue the citizenry in the LP and PDP, who have expressed their willingness to work with APC. But we will resist every attempt to intimidate the people,” Kekemeke said.

  • Israel vows to crush Gaza tunnels, snubs UN

    Israel vows to crush Gaza tunnels, snubs UN

    •U.S continues to arm Israel
    •Palestinians mulls dragging Israel to ICJ

    Speaking at a special cabinet meeting in Tel Aviv, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he would not accept any ceasefire that did not allow troops to continue destroying tunnels used by militants to attack Israel.

    “Until now, we have destroyed dozens of terror tunnels and we are determined to finish this mission — with or without a ceasefire,” he said at the start of the meeting.

    “So I will not accept any (truce) proposal that does not allow the IDF (army) to complete this work for the security of Israel’s citizens.”

    Washington also said it had agreed to restock Israel’s dwindling ammunition supplies, despite increasing international concern over the death toll in Gaza, where 1,395 people have been killed in 24 days of violence

    Following the shelling of a UN school in northern Gaza on Wednesday which killed 16, UN human rights chief Navi Pillay slammed Israel for attacking homes, schools and hospitals, accusing it of “deliberate defiance” of international law.

    “There appears to be deliberate defiance of obligations that international law imposes on Israel.”

    The shelling of the school also drew sharp condemnation from UN chief Ban Ki-moon, who described it as “reprehensible”, as well as from Washington.

    Despite a heavy death toll in Gaza on Wednesday when 111 Palestinians were killed, including 17 who died in a strike on a crowded market place and another 16 at the UN school, Washington said it had restocked the army’s ammunition.  The Pentagon confirmed it had granted a request for ammunition, including some from a stockpile stored by the US military inside Israel for emergency use by the Jewish state.

    Rights group Amnesty International had previously urged Washington to halt arms supplies to Israel.

    There was no letup yesterday in the bloodshed with at least 13 Palestinians killed, another 13 dying from injuries suffered in earlier attacks and a growing number of bodies pulled from under rubble in areas near Khan Yunis, medics said.

    Earlier, the top U.N. human rights official accused both sides of committing war crimes.

    The U.N.’s top human rights official accused both Israel and Hamas militants of committing war crimes in the latest Gaza war, but reserved her harshest words for the Israeli government, which she said yesterday was deliberately defying international law.

    U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay said that by placing and firing rockets within heavily populated areas both sides are committing “a violation of international humanitarian law, therefore a war crime.”

    “None of this appears to me to be accidental,” Pillay said of Israel at a news conference in Geneva to mark the end of her six-year term. “They appear to be defying – deliberate defiance of – obligations that international law imposes on Israel.”

    Pillay also took aim at the U.S., Israel’s main ally, for providing financial support for Israel’s Iron Dome anti-rocket defense system.

    She accused both Israel and Hamas militants of committing war crimes in the latest Gaza war, but reserved her harshest words for the Israeli government, which she said Thursday was deliberately defying international law.U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay said that by placing and firing rockets within heavily populated areas both sides are committing “a violation of international humanitarian law, therefore a war crime.”

    None of this appears to me to be accidental,” Pillay said of Israel at a news conference in Geneva to mark the end of her six-year term. “They appear to be defying – deliberate defiance of – obligations that international law imposes on Israel.””What I’m seeing now is a recurrence of the very acts that the Gaza fact-finding mission indicated as constituting war crimes and crimes against humanity,” she said.Pillay also took aim at the U.S., Israel’s main ally, for providing financial support for Israel’s Iron Dome anti-rocket defense system.”

    No such protection has been provided to Gazans against the shelling,” she said

    Meanwhile, Palestinian officials say President Mahmoud Abbas is seeking broad political support, including from rival Hamas, before making any attempt to press possible war crimes charges against Israel.

  • Amaechi vows to finish strong

    Amaechi vows to finish strong

    Rivers State Governor Rotimi Amaechi has assured the indigenes that his administration would finish strong to the surprise of his detractors.

    He said his ambition was to leave a legacy of good governance and complete projects before the expiration of his tenure.

    Amaechi spoke yesterday at the synod convention organised by Evo Diocese of the Anglican Communion in Port Harcourt, the state capital.

    He was the special guest of honour.

    The governor, represented by the Commissioner for Information and Communication, Ibim Semenitari, said he would finish strong and would not sell his conscience.

    He advised the church to pray for him and the state, as he would ensure that the wealth of the Rivers people is in a safe hand.

    Amaechi told the congregation that he defected to the All Progressives Congress (APC) to secure the future of Rivers people.

    His words: “As the leader of the Rivers people, I owe you a duty to clarify on why I joined the APC. We have heard people wonder why we moved to the APC. I know we are in the church, but it is important to know that we took the decision to protect the future of Rivers people.”

  • Ex- commissioner vows to draw closer to God

    The former Rivers Commissioner for Budget and Economic Affair during the Peter Odili-led administration, Sir Ejims Ewukwe, has pledged to improve his relationship with God.

    He made the declaration at the weekend in Port Harcourt, Rivers State capital, shortly after his installation as the Knight of Saint Christopher at the Diocese of Evo Anglican Communion Woji Community.

    Ejims noted that the investiture of the knighthood is “for selected members of the church who have been singled out for their outstanding performances in the vineyard of God.”

    The honour, he said, has humbled him to put the best of him in serving humanity and God.

    “Today, the church has honoured me and my wife and others who they think have made enough contribution to the development of the church.

    “I give God all the glory; this means I will intensify my relationship with God as a soldier of Christ,” Ejims stated.

    The Bishop, Rt. Rev Innocent Uchechukwu Ordu, said the knighthood should not be regarded only as a reward for job done but also as a new call for greater responsibility in the church.